Liberal activists call out Boulder's Misty Robotics for Breitbart ads

Problem plagues brands in age of targeted advertising

Jason Fernandez, left, and Areeya Taylor, are two of the engineers working on "Massive" the robot, at Misty Robotics in Boulder Jan. 11, 2018. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

An ad for Boulder-based Misty Robotics turned up on the far-right news website Breitbart, prompting an activist group to call out the company on Twitter.

On Monday, the Twitter account of Sleeping Giants — a social media campaign to de-fund Breitbart — re-tweeted a screenshot of a Breitbart article, titled "Report: 'Creepy' Clintonista Cody Shearer Scouring Europe for Fabled Trump 'Pee Pee' Tape." On the bottom was an ad for Misty Robotics' personal robot prototype, announced last month. Misty is now accepting applications from programmers and developers vying to purchase the initial units.

A spokesperson for Misty, in an emailed statement, said the company was "surprised our ad came up" on Breitbart and that the service they were utilizing, Facebook Audience Network, "doesn't allow you to view the network placements and puts your ads in places, like Breitbart, that you are unaware" of.

"(We) have now turned off Facebook Audience Network and our ads shouldn't be showing," said Jennifer Stephens Acree, a public relations specialist with California-based JSA Strategies. "We're looking into ways to ensure this doesn't happen again. This is not a Misty-specific issue but rather an ongoing (and unfortunately not new) problem with ad networks."

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Thousands of companies have been called out by Sleeping Giants, which began its campaign in November 2016. Its stated mission, supplied on its Facebook page, is to stop "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic news sites by stopping their ad dollars."

Of course, not every business is adverse to advertising on Breitbart, which has been credited with aiding President Trump's rise to the presidency. Companies publicly disavowing the site risk alienating a substantial portion of the population. Breitbart launched a #BoycottKellogg campaign after the cereal company pulled its ads. (Kellogg later stated there was no discernible impact to its sales.)

Amazon, notably, has continued placing ads on the site, despite mounting pressure from shareholders and members of the public. Amazon ads were visible on the site Tuesday.

Not much is known about the forces behind Sleeping Giants. The Washington Post in November reported that it had no physical address, no leaders and no organizational structure. The group also declines to identify themselves for interviews with media outlets, and on Twitter gives instructions on "How to be a Giant."

The original screenshot Sleeping Giants re-tweeted came from a Twitter user with the name Seldom Seen Smith and handle @airedog125, who identified himself as Jay Elko to the Camera.

"I check (Breitbart) a couple times a day and let companies know whenever I see them if they have a Twitter," Elko said in an email. "I like being one of the 'Giants' and to see that the Sleeping Giants list has grown and so many companies have chosen to blacklist Breitbart from their ad buys."

Some companies respond publicly to Elko or Sleeping Giants, expressing gratitude for being made aware of the ads. It's easy for a company's ads to end up where they don't intend, said Heather Lee, media supervisor for ad agency TDA_Boulder, because campaigns are often targeted to specific demographics and conducted largely via algorithms.

In those cases, ads follow people in that target audience, Lee said. "You're going to show up wherever that individual goes."

Clients can decide to blacklist certain sites, a relatively "easy" process, Lee said. Commonly, pornography sites are handled this way. But more and more, companies are starting to think about political no-go zones as well.

"We've always had political conversations on our radar," Lee said, "but there's a lot more sensitivity around it since Trump."

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